


The Light of a Whole Life Dies When Love is Done

by pro_fangirl



Category: Blue Bloods (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Five Stages of Grief, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Mourning, No one commits suicide, POV Second Person, Suicidal Thoughts, but please be careful, kind of, spoilers for season eight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24256294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pro_fangirl/pseuds/pro_fangirl
Summary: You get the call during church.The caller ID reads St. Victor’s and the first thing you think of is that sixteen year old rape victim who’s in critical condition.You give a sigh as you head to the narthex, hoping she’s not dead.She isn't. But your wife is.
Relationships: Danny Reagan/Linda Reagan
Kudos: 18





	The Light of a Whole Life Dies When Love is Done

**Author's Note:**

> Spoiler Warning for season eight. I repeat, DO NOT read if you haven't finished season eight unless you want to be spoiled. 
> 
> Title taken from the poem "Light" by Francis Bourdillon.
> 
> Trigger warning: Part of this story contains suicidal thoughts. There is no actual suicide attempt, but read with caution if that might be upsetting to you.

You get the call during church. 

The caller ID reads St. Victor’s and the first thing you think of is that sixteen year old rape victim who’s in critical condition.

You give a sigh as you head to the narthex, hoping she’s not dead. 

She isn't. But your wife is.

They tell you it was a helicopter crash. That her death was probably instantaneous. A broken neck from the impact. 

They probably hope this brings you comfort.

It doesn’t.

\---

Your family finds you in the narthex after the service ends.

Your head is bowed, hands clenched together cutting off your circulation. Your phone lays at your feet, you’d dropped it after the call had ended. 

“Danny?” 

Your grandfather speaks first, but it's your father’s eyes you meet. Eyes that have seen too much death, too many grieving families. 

You don’t have to say anything. He knows. 

“Danny? What’s wrong?” Your sister this time. 

“Dad?” Jack.

How do you do this? How do you tell your sons their mother is- no, she’s not dead. She can’t be, shouldn’t be. But she is. 

“It’s Linda,” you manage to choke out against the lump in your throat. You take in a breath that feels harsh as it enters your lungs. Fractured light from the stained glass windows shines upon you as you look into the eyes of your sons. You immediately look down again, finding yourself unable to say anything. But it doesn’t matter. Your family gets the message. 

Right there, in the middle of a place that’s supposed to be about rebirth, about resurrection and new life and all things good and holy, a part of you crumbles and dies. 

\---

You feel numb.

It’s not a new feeling. You’ve felt this way before. Only this time it’s different. It isn’t Grandma, or Mom, or Joe, or a police officer. This time it’s your wife. 

Your sons are upstairs. You should go to them, but you can’t. You can’t do anything but sit on the porch, nursing a bottle of beer and replaying that phone call in your head. 

“Is this Daniel Reagan?”

“Sir, it’s your wife.”

“Helicopter crash.”

“Neck snapped.”

“DOA.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

You’re numb. 

The anger will come later. The anger and the grief and the “what ifs” and the “should haves” and the pain. You’ve done this before. You know how it goes.

But for now you feel nothing. 

\---

Later, when the sun’s low in the sky and the crickets are beginning to chirp and everything is calm and peaceful which is wrong, so wrong, the screen door opens. Through it come your sister and your brother. They don’t say anything. Your brother hands you a new bottle of beer, and you sit together doing nothing, saying nothing. Just watching the sun set and the colors in the sky fade to black and feeling the air get colder and colder which would be a problem if you weren’t already so numb. 

Night falls and you remain. Your siblings go inside and your father and grandfather take their place and you remain. Your phone vibrates and you really should answer that, but you don’t, and you remain.

\---

Morning comes. The sun rises and with it comes the first sparks of anger. Your family has suffered enough. What cruel god had looked down upon you and decided you needed another tragedy? It’s not fair that all the monsters of the world, all the murderers and the rapists and the arsonists and the thieves, all the horrible people you deal with every day, it’s not fair that they get to live when so many people you love have drawn their final breaths too soon.

Ignoring the cramps and the stiffness of your body, you get to your feet and go inside. You should really go see your sons now, but you don’t. You go upstairs and lock yourself in your old bedroom.

Oh, what you would give to go back to simpler times. When your biggest regret was dropping that pass and the biggest punishment life could offer was getting grounded. 

But life doesn’t work that way so you simply lie on your bed and find shapes in the ceiling plaster while ignoring the ache in your heart. 

\---

The next week goes by in a blur that you won’t remember much of when you look back. 

You get cards you don’t read, and flowers that will just die anyways, and home cooked meals that don’t taste like anything. You try to talk to your family, but most of the time it hurts too much so you spend most of your time alone. You get asked questions about favorite flowers, and coffins, and song choices, and you don’t know, don’t know, don’t know. The funeral happens and you see everything through a veil of tears. The anger grows, only matched by the grief. On Sunday you stay behind after the service and yell at God for doing this. But the sun still shines just as brightly and you find you don’t feel any better. You go home and cry and yell some more until you collapse on your bed exhausted, hardly believing a week ago you had kissed your wife goodbye on her way to work. 

For the first time in a week, sleep comes quickly. You dream of her smile. 

\---

The good night's sleep must have been the calm before the storm because it’s the next day when it finally sinks in that your wife is never coming back.

It’s the emptiness of the house that does it. Your sons are at school, your siblings and father at work, and your grandfather is across the street visiting with an old lady who’s broken her hip. It’s the first time you’ve been alone since that phone call. 

It hits you then. The love of your life is buried six feet under the ground. She isn’t coming back. 

You’ve been through this moment before with Grandma and Mom and Joe. This time it’s worse. 

In the most vulnerable moment you’ve had in your life, you find yourself sitting at the dining table, finger on the trigger of a loaded gun. 

It would be so easy, a part of you thinks. So easy to pull the trigger, to end it all, to see her again. You know where to aim. It’ll be over before you can even feel the pain.

You think of your father then. He’s already had to bury too many people, given too many eulogies. One more and his heart might break. Especially if it’s his son, the second child he will have had to bury. 

You think of your grandfather who looks at you, not with pity, but with encouragement. He seems to find a strength in you that you didn’t think you had. 

You think of your sister. You owe her a thousand favors for all the times you’ve called her demanding something and she’s gone out of her way to help you. She’s even kind enough to still let you into her office after all these years. 

You think of your brother who has been (very obviously) head-over-heels for that partner of his for four years. You want to be there for when he finally gets the balls to ask her out. 

You think of your sons who have kept smiling even though their mom who had kept their family alive had died. They’re still young. You need to be there for them now. Need to be their cheerleader at sport games, and their cooker of meals, and their shoulder to cry on. You need to be there to love them. 

And finally, you think of your wife. Linda. The love of your life. The person who loved you the most. She wouldn’t want you to do this. You can almost hear her yelling at you to stay right where you are. 

Protecting your father. Having the strength your grandfather believes you have. Paying back favors. Watching your brother fall in love. Loving your sons. Remembering, loving, and honoring your wife. 

These are all reasons to stay. 

Fingering the gold ring on your finger, you put down the gun and you breathe. 

\---

Life doesn’t automatically get better. You still cry and yell and sit in the same spot for hours, just staring at the walls. Some days you feel everything at once. Some days you feel nothing. 

But there are good days mixed in with the bad. You take your sons out to a baseball game and laugh as Sean spills sauerkraut all over his pants. Baez surprises you with concert tickets one day and despite all your protests that the great First Grade Detective Danny Reagan doesn’t go to concerts, you end up singing along at the top of your lungs anyways. 

Your family surprises you with a new house and you keep working, despite the fact that you were planning on putting your papers in. Family dinners become less painful and you love your family more and more. 

You learn and you grow and you find out how to breathe again. You take the most of every moment and you live with fervor. 

After the dinner where Jamie brings home his fiancée, you step outside and raise a beer to the sky. If Linda was here you would be talking about your proposal and the first year of your marriage, and then you’d kiss her and she’d whisper “I love you.” 

She’s not here to say it, but you reply anyways. 

“I love you more.”

As you take a sip from the bottle as a small toast to Jamie, and to Eddie, and to Linda and all your wonderful years together, you swear you hear a whisper from the heavens. 

“I love you more.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully this pandemic will all be over soon, but until then I hope everyone is staying healthy and living life to the best of their ability. Thank you for reading. <3 <3 <3


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